Twitter

Is there possibly a bigger overnight success story than Twitter? Launched in 2006, it was a quirky little thing that let people post short messages — a mere 140 characters — and follow the posts of others. What could you possible have to say that other people would want to read? Or, what could you possibly say in so few characters?

Turns out, quite a bit.

As of March 2014, Twitter boasted 225 million monthly active users. It does somewhere near a quarter-billion dollars in revenue in a quarter. You can't turn on a TV or watch a morning show or see a billboard or visit Facebook or load a website without seeing a reference to Twitter. Or to a "hashtag" — the unofficial method by which Twitter users began making their tweets more easily searchable. It's not quite as ubiquitous as, say, text messaging, but it's not that far off, either. Twitter is a way for celebrities other members of the famous ilk to "connect" with their fans. It's a way for anyone to communicate with everyone.

And mobile quickly became Twitter's go-to medium. The ability to post from anywhere, at any time, be it via app or mobile site or text. The ability to post a selfie or countless pictures of food. Or, more important as we started to see with the Arab Spring uprising, the ability to share news as it's happening (much to the chagrin of the occasional government).

It's not all been without controversy, however, especially when it comes to apps. Twitter still provides APIs for developers to tap into, but it has significantly capped the number of users new apps can have, thus limiting the usefulness of apps as a revenue source for developers. Meanwhile, Twitter's own apps have been a bit of a mess, off and on.

With Twitter, you have to take the good (social change and the connecting of the world) with the bad (anything and everything Kardashian and Bieber). And that's OK. Because you only have to take it for 140 characters at a time.

Twitter - Featured Articles

A number of folks have inquired this one lately, so let's nip it in the bud. A recent update to the Android Twitter application brings about a new permission: accessing your phone or tablet's microphone. And rightfully so, folks are doing a double take and asking why Twitter suddenly needs to be...

Twitter has announced that they will now allow users to share lists of blocked accounts from the web version of the service.
Twitter has announced that users of its web app will now be able to share their lists of blocked accounts with others. This initiative is an extension of Twitter's anti-...

Twitter is currently rolling out autoplay for videos on the web, and will updated its official Android app with the feature soon.
Twitter has announced that video ads, Vines, and GIFs will now be able to play automatically inside tweets. The feature is currently rolling out on both the web, and...

Twitter has announced some changes in its policies, along with some revised enforcement options, designed to combat the abusive users of its social network.
The changes include expanding the definitions of Twitter's violent threats policy, along with more options for the company's service team...

All Twitter

Twitter aims to make it easier to find more information about the products and places others are talking about, as it launches two new features to assist.
Often times on Twitter, people are talking about products they are interested in, or places they want to visit, but finding information about...

Later this year, Twitter will roll out what is currently known as Project Lightning, which will deliver curated, event-based information to users.
Twitter's Project Lightning is built to deliver information about interesting events, both scheduled events like awards shows, as well as breaking...

Twitter is currently rolling out autoplay for videos on the web, and will updated its official Android app with the feature soon.
Twitter has announced that video ads, Vines, and GIFs will now be able to play automatically inside tweets. The feature is currently rolling out on both the web, and...

Twitter will be making some more changes in July, one of which will be the removal of the 140 character limit for direct messages.
Currently, users have a 140-character limit for both tweets and direct messages, but in July Twitter will be removing that limitation from direct messages. The...

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has headed the company since being appointed back in 2010. The executive has opted to step down amidst Wall Street losing faith in both Costolo and Twitter's future growth.
Costolo will step down effective July 1, and will be replaced by Twitter co-founder and chairman...

Twitter has announced that they will now allow users to share lists of blocked accounts from the web version of the service.
Twitter has announced that users of its web app will now be able to share their lists of blocked accounts with others. This initiative is an extension of Twitter's anti-...

Highlights is Twitter's latest feature addition which delivers a push notification daily summarizing the day's best tweets.
Twitter wants to make sure that users are not missing out on things when they are busy with other tasks, and Highlights is the companies latest way to keep you informed of...

Twitter has announced some changes in its policies, along with some revised enforcement options, designed to combat the abusive users of its social network.
The changes include expanding the definitions of Twitter's violent threats policy, along with more options for the company's service team...

Twitter is making a big change in its direct messaging feature, allowing users the option to receive direct messages from any other Twitter user.
Previously, Twitter only allowed for direct messages to be sent to people who followed each other on the service. Now users can make a change in their...

Sure, there's a newly expanded set of ethnically-diverse and more-useful emoji out there (and already integrated into iOS), but do they have stormtroopers or protocol droids? Didn't think so. Thankfully, Twitter does.
Today's bringing us not only the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer (...

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